Fred - we have several AIMS accredited course measurers here in NZ.  The certified courses I know of include:

• Any event that is a regional or national championship course, including 10k, half marathon and marathon champs
• Christchurch Marathon (and half marathon)
• Wellington Marathon (and half marathon)
• Dunedin Marathon (the marathon was definitely certified this year.  Half was measured with a calibrated bike but they didn't try and get it certified for some reason)
• Auckland Marathon (and half marathon)
• Rotorua Marathon
• Hawkes Bay Marathon
• Queenstown Marathon
• Coatesville Half Marathon
• Waterfront Half Marathon

There will be other courses that have been measured properly, but did not seek certification.  But there has also been a big uptick (at least pre-Covid) in the number of events pitched at more of a fun/lifestyle level.  They're not always nearly as thorough on their measurement.  Typically these are only slightly short - if at all - like maybe 50-100m... but you get the odd shocker like Mt. Maunganui Half or Tauranga Half.

Watson - I see the guy who won the half in Rotorua is the same guy I had that epic battle with at Omaha HM back in March!

Watson - I thought that was a seriously impressive effort in your full. Didn't really think you had enough build-up to achieve that time.

Fred - It's never too late to set PRs (or even PBs)!

Piwi - What I'd really like to do is run a 6x1km with only 60s rest in-between. I think that would give me a better indication of a potential 5km time. One slight drawback with the Sat morn track sessions is that rest times tend to blow out a bit (as we often have 15-20 runners, and we all start the reps together).

My Week:

Turns out there were a lot of Half Marathons over the weekend! Mine was an off-road brute, starting on an old golf course at the bottom of the world! In true Kiwi style, it was probably short of a proper distance, however still pretty happy with my effort. It was very hard work, with undulating grassy tracks through sand dunes and running on the beach making up most of the course (2 laps). Me and a slightly younger guy were battling for 3rd and 4th, which kept me on an honest pace. He started to pull away from me over the 2nd beach stretch, but I managed to keep him close enough so that I could run him down over the last 1km.

Weekly for period: From: 12/09/2022 To 18/09/2022

Total distance: 66.06km (41.06 Imperial Raindrops)

another week trying to get some threshold or tempo run and stay above 25 miles ...

I trhew in a cross country race, a 4 K organized by my club for 3-4 weeks. I use to run the marathon close to the pace I ran this race... but well... I got a benchmark now... I hope with some work on speed and miles I can get back close enough to were I was... who knows.

hope you all had a great weekend!

MArco

Hash - NZ Athletics also cannot spell your name.

https://athletics.org.nz/weekly-round-up-19-september/

Fred - I think half of setting a masters PR is believing that you can. The other half is training smarter than you did when you were younger.

Mark sorry you're still battling the sinus infection. Sorry about the lost races

James - I would at least get the kicking out of your swims when tapering. Personally I don't do any kick sets because as a performance thing my swimming is part of triathlon races so I minimize kicking during them anyways. Your situation is obviously different but for most people in  terms of forward propulsion 75-90% of it comes from your upper body meaning that training the kick has a low payoff anyways.

DW  Well paced race. Congrats on the progress since Broad Street.

Steve  Good luck with the marathon! I hope it actually happens this time.

Marco - how'd you like the XC race ?

I'm slowly improving. My PT doesn't have a name for my condition but it's clearly in my back (as opposed to my glute&hamstring where I feel most of the symptoms). The good news is that I ran 5 days in a row.... the bad news is that totaled 12 whole miles.  Oh well, progress is progress, I'll take it. I'm still supplementing with weights, swimming and mountain biking so at least I'm having some fun seeing new trails. Hopefully I can step up to join Piwi in hobbyjogger-land in the next couple weeks.

Keen - Nice job edging out your rival in the 5k.  When you deal with interrupted sleep, do you get up/run later, or go at the same time and just cope with being tired?

Zebano - Appreciate the advice & encouragement.  I was already 49 when I started running, so at least I don't have to worry about seeing how fast I was decades ago.   12 miles may not seem like much, but 5 days in a row is good when you've been dealing with an injury.  I wish you a continued recovery.

Watson - Yeah, I don't get summer marathons.  I once ran a half in June (with a puzzlingly late start of 9am) and that was bad.  Races with small fields have different challenges.  On the plus side, no worries about traffic, but on the down side, it's not always fun to be running all alone in a race (unless you're leading, but I wouldn't know about that ).

Marco - Good job continuing the recovery.

Piwi - Sometimes you get people who can't read maps and set up the start/finish/turn in the wrong place.  I ran a half once where the first 5 mile markers were in the right place, #6 was about 0.1 miles long, and the rest were properly spaced relative to #6, but that extra tenth panicked a lot of people who thought they'd suddenly fallen off the pace.  I guess I'm saying human error can do lots of silly things to a race course.  All that said, 500m/1000m is a lot to be off by.  Changing a marathon course one week out is not something I'd be happy with either.

Hash - Nope, never too late.  Sounds like you ran an XC half, or at least a trail half.  Nice job running down 3rd place.

Dwave - Thanks.  I'm glad you're taking the DC result in stride and are still confident about Chicago (weather aside).  Good luck.

Steve - You make a good point that feeling relief after cancelling a run or changing a training plan is probably a good sign.  I sometimes get too emotionally invested in a race based on all the training I do.  I need to realize the training should be fun too (though the early morning alarms don't feel like fun).

Mark - How are you doing with the cold?  Your point about flexibility is well taken too.

I have three weeks to go to my first target half.  This week has some hard training, next week will have some moderate training, then tapering.  I'm still dealing with the lingering cough.  The course of steroids that was supposed to have me feeling better in a few days fell short of expectations, so back to the doctor I'll be going.  It's weird - right now I feel both optimistic about, and intimidated by, my goal.  Coughing aside, my training has gone well and I've been hitting my target paces, getting 7 miles of HM pace done in warm weather on hills in practice for a flat course in what should be cooler weather.  On the other hand, I've had to work harder to hit the targets than in past training cycles, but the fact that I hit them anyway should be a positive.  What I really need is to survive until 10 days out from the race, at which point I can stop obsessing about my training and start looking at the weather forecast three times/day.

Fred - do you have an aim time

I'd like to run a half sub-1:50, which will probably require an 8:20 pace after adjusting for the margin in certified course and not being able to run all the tangents.

 

No, you're still not obsessive enough.  You said "the weather forecast" singular.  You really should check at least three sources - the Weather Channel, AccuWeather, and WeatherUnderground.  They can be quite different sometimes.  

 

Does your goal race have pacers?  Assuming decent health and weather, it seems like you have the fitness to hit your goal, and following a pacer might help you get the most out of your fitness.

Fair point, though I don't favor the first two because their "local" forecasts tend to be from the nearest city.  Wunderground.com and weather.gov have nice graphical forecasts I can sink my teeth into.  I don't know whether the race has pacers, but if they do it's a small enough race that the pacers will likely be in 15-minute increments (e.g. 1:45, 2:00, etc.).  I've run more PRs without pacers than with, so I think I'll be OK in that regard (though running with a group always seems a bit easier).

I had a good workout this morning.  The plan was 4 x 1½ miles (well, 6 laps) @8:10 pace, or 12:12 per interval, with 800m recoveries.  I ran them in 12:11, :12, :13, and :09.  11 miles for the day.  I'm still coughing at bit.  In addition to the better (i.e. cooler) weather, using my inhaler before the run probably helped a good deal (usually, I only need it after hard runs in cold weather).  It felt really good to get that workout done, though; does a lot to dispel doubts.